


The New Hermione

by Glasses Gay (Snickerdebble_Exclusive)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Hermione Granger, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickerdebble_Exclusive/pseuds/Glasses%20Gay
Summary: Something's different about Hermione, and no one can quite put their finger on it.





	1. the new hermione

On any given day over the summer holidays before her fourteen-year-old daughter’s fourth year at magical boarding school, Helen Granger could expect to find Hermione in her room studying the course material, composing missives to her little friends, or partaking in rituals Helen had never seen the girl give a lick of attention to in the past: namely, painting her nails or lounging about in face masks whilst braiding or twisting her hair with varying degrees of success.

Helen could admit to herself that she’d been a bit remiss in teaching her daughter variety in terms of hairstyles— other than the obligatory overnight twist out, nothing fancy— because she was simply too busy. She ran a dentistry practice, and though Richard did a lot, the lion’s share of the administrative work usually fell upon Helen. It was no mystery why Hermione felt the need to take it upon herself to explore her hair in a way that Helen had never made time to explore with her.

There was also a marked change in how they interacted.

Hermione had always been an independent girl, but whereas before she might have predominantly displayed and expressed the mannerisms of a child, that summer she began to walk, talk and act like a young woman. There was a secret hiding behind her eyes that straightened her back and thrust her chin forward, that pulled at the corners of her lips and bunched her cheeks. It was startling; Helen wasn’t quite sure if she liked the fact that her baby was growing up so fast.

When Hermione came to her with a request that smacked less of permission and more of courtesy, Helen was thrown for a loop.

“Mum, Ron’s dad got us all tickets for the Quidditch Cup,” said her daughter over dinner one evening toward the end of summer. Her skin glowed with dewy health, and her curls were shiny, defined, and up in space buns.

Richard had retired early on account of a bad headache. Helen considered joining him.

Hermione continued determinedly, fork in the air, “I was thinking that I could take the Knight Bus to Ottery St. Catchpole and stay the weekend, because we have to get up really early to make the Portkey the night before the Cup and I don’t want to impose right when everyone’s running around for last minute preparations— ”

“Wait, wait,” Helen interrupted, eyes wide and mouth twisted. “Who said you could go to this— what did you call it?”

“Quidditch Cup,” Hermione supplied helpfully.

“Yes, that! I don’t recall signing off on this,” Helen pointed out. “I don’t mind you hanging out with your friends, but I expect some sort of notice, young lady.”

Her daughter’s shoulders lost a bit of their uprightness, and she had the decency to look abashed. “Right, yes, of course. Sorry, mum.”

Helen regarded her levelly for a moment. “When did you plan on leaving?”

“This weekend,” said Hermione. “Friday evening.”

After thinking it over, Helen decided it was of no use trying to convince her daughter to stay for the rest of holiday now that she’d already made up her mind. There was nothing to offer up as an excuse for her not to go— not that Helen had ever been the type to resort to tricks to get her daughter to do what she wanted, but it always seemed Hermione never wanted to stay with her parents all of break, always in a rush to leave as soon as her friends were available to have her. 

Helen wondered if, in the future, they would lose her to the Wizarding World entirely because they were simply unable to keep her interest in competition with turning rats into teacups and whatever else. The thought saddened and frustrated her deeply, but Helen knew that Hermione wasn’t the type to purposefully cast people away when they were no longer interesting; she wasn’t like that, didn’t take people for granted that way. Helen just had to have faith that even if she pursued a career and family in the magical world, Hermione would always come back to them in the important moments. 

After all, she was their daughter. That would never change.

When Hermione came to the Burrow the evening before the World Cup, Ginny Weasley was expecting the same bookish, buck-toothed know-it-all of which she’d grown fond. She figured they all were; after all, only about three months had lapsed between them last seeing each other, and what could change so drastically in three months?

Turns out: a lot.

With the exception of one glaring outlier, Ginny wasn’t easily flustered by anyone or anything. On the contrary, she was rather bold; the gutsiest of her friends and one of the most outspoken girls in her year, possibly due to having as many annoying elder brothers who’d shushed her for as long as they had. But nothing could have prepared her— or evidently anyone else who caught a glimpse of their muggleborn guest— for Hermione’s arrival.

Ginny sat on the staircase with her chin on her hand and watched her father traverse the sitting room, a familiar, well-maintained leather trunk levitating along behind him. At an angle from the doorway, Ginny saw first a red trainer caked with mud step through, and then one long, toned brown leg, and then the rest of her. She was in denim shorts— shorts— that admittedly weren’t anywhere near scandalous, but would nonetheless raise Molly Weasley’s hackles just a tad, and a light green t-shirt that clung to the new swells of curves denoting her developing hips, thighs and— Ginny glanced at her own self-consciously— breasts. Her curly hair looked lovely up in a knot atop her head, and her face glowed like the sun had earlier that summer afternoon. Dangling from her elbow was a woven, linen-lined basket with a plump, bottle-shaped orange tail sticking out.

Ginny realized her hand was cramping from how hard her jaw wanted to drop and forced herself to relax. This was her friend, or her brother’s friend and her acquaintance, at the very least. She could put aside her shock and greet her with genuine warmth like she’d planned to.

Her mother beat her to the punch, bustling out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her apron. If she had any sort of opinion about Hermione’s attire, she hid it well. “Hermione, dear, it’s lovely to see you!”

The fourteen-year-old was squeezed into a bear hug tight enough to rid her of her tonsils. Hermione put Crookshanks down in time and took it in stride, returning the greeting with aplomb. 

“Have you had dinner? I’m only just finishing up, it’ll be ready in ten.”

“Can I help with anything?” Hermione asked, just a hair left of timidly. Mum waved her off, though she seemed pleased by the gesture.

“Ginny! Go tell your brothers dinner’s almost ready.”

Ginny sighed.

Hermione’s eyes lit on her, still poised awkwardly with one foot on the last stair step. Ginny waved.

“Hello, Ginny,” the Goddess Hermione beamed.

Ginny closed the distance between them, and they briefly embraced; when they pulled apart, the younger girl basked in the light of the elder’s grin, mesmerized. 

“How have you been?”

“Oh, you know,” Ginny replied faintly, feeling very small and boyish. “I— same old, same old. You?”

Hermione smiled. “Same old, same old.”

Ginny shook her head in disbelief, but managed a sensible enough response. “I think Ron’s upstairs. If not, check the orchard.”

“Noted.”

“Oh,” Ginny touched her arm before she could walk away, “Watch out for Fred and George. And Percy. They’ve all been their own brand of crazy lately.”

The Wizard Wheezes were a hell of a laugh when Ginny wasn’t the butt of the joke. Granted, Ron bore the brunt of the madness, but they’d all suffered their fair share of misfortunes when Fred and George needed test subjects. Ginny felt for their plight— especially after their mother thoroughly put a wrench their business ventures— but not enough to be a canary for an hour. Luckily, the twins seemed to take her threats a bit more seriously than Ron’s and it had been smooth sailing since.

On the flip side of things, Ginny wondered if Hermione would actually take some academic interest in Percy’s report on cauldron bottom thickness. She seemed the most likely to not fall asleep standing up at the mere mention of it.

Hermione seemed a tad unnerved by the warning, but shook it off after a second and nodded gratefully before making her way toward the stairs, Crookshanks hot on her heels. Ginny forced her eyes away from her round bum, bewildered at herself for staring.

And then Ginny came to her senses and scrambled to follow the older girl, eager to see Ron’s face when he slapped eyes on the New Hermione.

The Burrow was almost exactly like Harry remembered it: warm and crooked and alive with magic that had seeped into the walls and floorboards. It also smelled amazing. The only things Harry didn’t recognize were the two men sitting at the kitchen table, but by their hair alone, he knew they must be the two eldest Weasley brothers, Bill and Charlie.

"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under his fingers. 

This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.

They both seemed to find the twins’ prank as funny as the rest of them did, which made Harry like them better than Percy, already.

A part of Harry— a very small part, mind— felt a tiny dash of sympathy for his cousin at having a tongue that grew to be over four feet long and just about as heavy as a tongue that size would be; but a much larger part of him thought the incident barely managed to scrape the surface in terms of repentance for the childhood he’d had to endure at the business end of Dudley’s ham-fisted terror. The sight of the overweight boy coughing, spluttering and hacking as he tried and failed to stuff the lolling pink muscle back into his mouth was probably enough of a laugh to produce a Patronus three times over.

Thus, he felt Mr. Weasley’s anger at Fred and George for instigating the whole incident— though understandable— was somewhat misplaced. Unfortunately, things seemed to escalate when Mrs. Weasley came to investigate the ruckus, as they usually did following her interference in any given scuffle. Two girls appeared in the doorway to the kitchen in the middle of the fast-paced conflict that Harry had missed so keenly at his relatives’ house, and they were familiar, too.

One was small and red-haired; Ginny, Ron’s younger sister. The other was… well…

Harry knew that it was his other best friend, Hermione, but she looked different. Her hair wasn’t bushy like he’d previously known it to be, but styled in big, luscious, defined curls that he could probably count if he felt inclined to do so. The shirt she was wearing clung to… everything… and her denim skirt fell to just below mid-thigh. Her front teeth were still large, but they were between lips that glistened with gloss. Harry glanced at Ginny, whose lips shone the same way. They were girls. Girls like the kind on the telly that wore makeup and strutted around shopping centers and chatted on their mobiles whilst chewing gum.

When they smiled at him, he took a whole four seconds to smile back, shocked out of sense. When he finally did, Ginny went red and turned away to cover her mouth with her hand; he felt a hot spike of embarrassment, knowing she was likely laughing at him.

At least she didn’t seem so afraid of him anymore. Ginny’s crush was the only uncomfortable thing about his last visit to the Burrow.

“Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the doorway.

"He knows where he's sleeping," said Ron, "in my room, he slept there last— ” 

"We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.

"Oh," said Ron, cottoning on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

Harry and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories. 

Harry couldn’t help but glance at Hermione every so often, confused but fascinated. He also had no say in whether his eyes followed the swish of Ginny’s fiery, pin-straight hair as it swung to the rhythm of her steps. 

He suddenly felt horribly unattractive in his overly-large t-shirt and baggy jeans, and self-consciously stuffed his hands as deep in his pockets as they would go so that his shirt was trapped to his body and wouldn’t be billowing everywhere. He probably looked ridiculous.

“I hope your aunt and uncle weren’t too terrible to you this summer, Harry,” said Hermione. “I trust you got our food parcels?”

Harry latched onto the welcome reprieve from the racket inside his own head. “Those food parcels saved me from Dudley’s joke of a diet plan. And, well… they haven’t really changed, but I suppose Sirius scared them into being civil.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Ron muttered, shuddering.

“He said he was sorry,” Harry said quickly.

Ron threw up his hands. “I know, I know… and I forgive him, given the circumstances. But that doesn’t change the fact that the man is terrifying, mate. Twelve years in prison doesn’t exactly make you a teddy bear.”

Harry couldn’t argue with that.

They filed into Ron’s small attic room. It looked the same as it always had, with the rather noisy addition of a tiny owl, who Ron introduced grudgingly as Pigwidgeon, dubbed thus by Ginny. Hermione and Ginny sat on the bed, and Harry followed Ron’s lead in finding a place on the floor. Ron looked at the girls for a moment, nonplussed.

“Get lost, Ginny,” he demanded.

Ginny crossed her arms, unimpressed. Hermione, too, seemed offended on the other girl’s behalf.

“She can stay, Ron.”

Such finality. Such command.

Harry sat back, ready for yet another much-missed showdown between his two best friends. Unexpectedly, however, Ron merely stared at her.

Ginny began to laugh. Hermione’s stony-faced visage cracked and she started to chuckle as well. Harry covered his mouth with a fist and coughed several times in a row.

Ron seemed to snap out of his stupor on the sixth cough and burned bright red. He scrambled to his feet and muttered something about the bathroom before hightailing it out of the attic. Harry felt bad and tagged along, hot on his heels.

They reached the second landing before Ron slowed and sat down against the wall.

“Why are you following me?” his friend asked tiredly, arms resting on his folded knees. “This ruins my bathroom alibi.”

Harry shrugged and sat down across from him. He didn’t have to wait long before Ron launched into a heated diatribe.

“You haven’t been here long, mate,” said Ron, “but it’s been like this ever since she arrived. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a theory.”

“Do tell.”

“Hermione’s been replaced by a succubus.”

Harry choked on his own spit. “Ron, what— ”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Ron hurried to say, indeed wild-eyed. “But look at the facts, Harry!”

“What facts?” Harry forced himself to ask.

“I did my research,” Ron replied seriously. “They go by all kinds of names and come in all sorts of forms. From the Meridiana in first century Italy to the ancient Arabian myths of the qarinah, she fits a lot of the descriptions, Harry!”

He held out a fist and began sticking out fingers one by one. “The hair hides the horns, she’s got flawless skin, the curves… and Harry, she hasn’t stopped wearing socks since she got here. Clearly, it’s to hide a common deformity in succubi: claws for feet. You might be wondering why they still take the shape of human feet— but I’ve got an answer for that, too. Glamours.”

Harry had no idea what to say.

“I think she got possessed when she was at her parents’ house and she came here to get the jump on us at the most convenient time,” Ron ploughed on. “The Cup, when all of us Weasley men would be gathered in one place. It all makes sense, Harry! It couldn’t be anything else!”

Harry had never seen his best mate take such an academic interest in anything, least of all academics, and thought fast to dissuade him before things derailed further.

“Ron, I admire your thorough investigation into this, but I think you might be wrong on this one. And anyway, if Hermione is a succubus, then Ginny has to be, as well.”

Ron recoiled. “What? Gross, no.”

“Well, I noticed something, too,” said Harry. “They’re… y’know, girls. They’re wearing makeup and… they smell good.”

“No, I think my idea makes more sense,” Ron replied slowly. “They’ve been girls all along. Ginny hasn’t changed. Hermione has. Something fishy is going on.”

“Okay, look at it this way,” said Harry. “Hermione has never been unattractive, mate, but we were kids when we met. I’m no expert at this by any means, but I think there’s some point when girls turn into women just like boys turn into men. She might have just stepped over to the other side.”

Ron crossed his arms. “In three months, everything about her changed?”

“Not everything.”

“I haven’t seen her with a book yet. That’s like ninety percent of her personality gone, mate.”

“I still read,” a voice remarked crossly from above them.

Their heads snapped up.

Hermione and Ginny were leaning over the balcony, amusement written plainly on their faces. Harry took note of Crookshanks cradled in Ginny’s arms like a rather ugly baby.

“Just because I hit a growth spurt doesn’t mean I’ve been possessed by a succubus, Ronald,” said Hermione.

Ron shot to his feet. “You don’t fool me, she-demon!”

And with that, he darted down the stairs and out of sight. They all stared after him for a moment.

“I can’t be the only one that finds this hilarious?” Ginny suddenly asked. “Do Fred and George know? Someone should tell them.”

“I think he’s finally lost it,” Hermione mused. “Who knew all it took to break Ron were three months’ worth of yoga and a consistent hair and skin care routine?”

“And a couple of coats of lip gloss,” Ginny added, grinning wickedly.

“Right, of course,” said Hermione. “That can’t be overstated.”

“No comment,” muttered Harry. 

The loud crashing of what turned out to be Bill and Charlie table-battling startled them all, and dinner arrived soon after.


	2. the cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the events before, during and after the quidditch cup

Fortunately, things seemed to calm down considerably early the next morning, which dawned chilly and filled to bursting with anticipation.

Hermione had done her hair in what looked to Harry like curtains of thick twists, pushed back from her face by a thick purple headband. Her eyes were just as groggy and her jumper-sheathed limbs were just as sluggish as anyone else’s as she shoveled hot porridge up from her bowl. She hadn’t undergone a complete reversal into her old self, but she looked human again, at least, and not otherworldly in her glow. Harry thought it was only fair.

Ron seemed to think so, as well, and even voiced the fact that he may have been mistaken. Under his breath, of course.

Bill and Charlie were apparating to the site so that they could sleep in longer. Mrs. Weasley thoroughly stripped Fred and George of all of their merchandise in a manner Harry thought incredibly unfair, but wisely said nothing just like everyone else.

It would have made for a rather sour walk up to the Portkey site— and maybe it was for most everyone else— but Hermione roped him into helping her take her hair down from its curtain-like state.

“Not that I’m complaining,” said Harry, because he wasn’t; for some reason, it made him feel special that she’d chosen him for such an obviously personal task, however routine. “But why me?”

“You’re a seeker,” she said, delicately unwinding the hair on the opposite side of her head from where he was working. “I figured your fingers probably had to have pretty decent intuition.”

Indeed, though there seemed no wrong way to simply unravel the strands, the spots where they wound around each other seemed the weakest and least disruptive at which to prod and pull. It made for a quicker undoing and a more intact curl. The result was incredibly visually appealing. Harry felt like he’d been let in on a secret.

When they started to go up Stoatshead Hill on their way to the allocated portkey, it became cumbersome to work and walk at the same time, so Hermione gently batted his hands away and thanked him for his help. He tucked his thumbs behind the straps of his rucksack and tried not to look put out. 

He also made the mistake of looking at Ron immediately after he’d been politely dismissed. His best mate’s face was clouded over with something that could be described as generally unpleasant. Harry wondered how long he’d been watching.

Without anything to occupy his hands, they started to stiffen up in the dewy chill. The hill’s incline only got steeper. Harry was glad when the hill started to level out; his lungs were crying out for help by then.

“We’ve made excellent time— we’ve got ten whole minutes to find it,” Mr. Weasley declared lowly, wiping his glasses on his sweater before replacing them. “It won’t be big.”

They’d barely been searching for a minute when an unfamiliar voice called from some ways away, “Over here, Arthur! We’ve got it!”

On the other side of the hill, Mr. Weasley introduced Amos Diggory, who held a moldy old boot. Harry already knew his son, Cedric, who was the seeker for the Hufflepuff team. He’d beaten Harry in the first match of the past season, but only because of dementors, so Harry wasn’t too hung up on it. He seemed like an alright sort.

Cedric’s father, Amos, was no small braggart, which made Harry uncomfortable. Fortunately, Mr. Weasley pulled the attention away from the cursed match the previous year between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor and got the ball rolling on the Portkey before Fred and George— who were beaters for the Gryffindor team— started swinging, or worse: offering to share treats. Not that they had any left to share.

Mr. Weasley instructed them to get at least one finger on; Harry complied readily. Hermione was right beside him. He could smell her minty breath as she exhaled deeply, probably psyching herself up for the ride. Noticing that their fingers were on the opposite hand from each other, he impulsively grabbed her free hand right before Mr. Weasley finished counting down.

The sensation was unpleasant, to say the least. It felt like some invisible force had hooked just inside of his navel and yanked. His feet left the ground. He could feel Ron’s shoulder bumping against his, and Hermione’s hand gripping his like a vice.

All at once, it was over and his feet slammed on new ground. The Weasleys, pardoning their father, all fell. When Ron stumbled into him, Harry almost toppled over like a domino, but managed to keep his footing. Harry got the feeling that he and Hermione only remained upright because of their joined hands. They looked at each other before disengaging quickly and looking away.

“Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill,” said a voice.

Every Hogwarts student— and one former, in Oliver Wood’s case— that they came across did a double-take when it came to Hermione. Harry and Ron, it seemed, weren’t the only ones bludgeoned over the head with how much she’d… grown, so to speak.

And every time, she seemed perfectly aware of it all. Not indulging or acting on it, just smiling benignly, as if casually flattered but generally unfazed by the gaping mouths and eyes the size of dinner plates. A few times in what felt like several acres of tents, older wizards that stood out in front of theirs followed her with their eyes. Her age upon closer scrutiny seemed to discourage only some. It was this attention that brought tension and rigidity to her shoulders and back; Harry caught eyes with Ron, who returned a grimace, and they wordlessly fell into a pattern so that she walked between them.

If she discerned why, she didn’t say anything about it.

After retrieving water and running into even more familiar faces on the way back, the rest of the morning passed in a blur of heating the water, cooking, and getting a crash course in the ministry personnel that were dashing back and forth, putting out both figurative and literal fires. They met the exuberant Ludo Bagman, who seemed to be on gambling rounds, and Bartemius Crouch, who seemed only cursorily aware of Percy’s existence despite being his boss.

It was all very amusing— and somewhat embarrassing for Percy.

Harry wondered about the mystery event that, so far, had come up twice in the two days he’d been with the Weasleys. It’s happening at Hogwarts! Bagman had said. His mind raced with possibilities.

They still had the entire day before the match began that evening, and Harry decided to spend most of it getting caught up on the stats that season; he’d been away from Quidditch for far too long.

Meanwhile, Hermione curled up on the tiny loveseat in the tent she was sharing with Ginny to read. It was interesting to sit out and observe the goings-on around the campgrounds and keep a running tally of poorly-chosen outfits and Obliviators running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but Hermione figured she’d only get so much time to herself before the match began and the quietest it would get would be a dull roar.

Ginny was still outside talking brooms and odds with the boys, as fiercely invested as any of them. She could have her time; Quidditch was one of the few things Hermione didn’t care to learn more about.

The book open on her lap wasn’t course material, which she’d gone over three times in her need to fully prepare for the upcoming term. Instead, she was giving her brain a rest with The Chronicles of Narnia, which she’d begun to reread at the beginning of the summer. Currently, she perused The Horse and His Boy. Certain passages and bits of dialogue echoed from flashes of memory— tucked into bed with her father in the chair beside, the familiar cover partially obscured by his large, dark brown hands. 

Hermione smiled. Before third year, she seldom recalled her earlier years out of some obsession with the future ones; so caught up in what was to be, what had to be, that she ignored what lay behind her. The time turner had changed a lot of that, ironically enough.

She’d practically lived a whole school year longer than her peers in the immediate past, and though she didn’t consider herself above them in any way, she certainly felt changed by the entire experience. Less frantic, less willing to take outrageous personal risks for minimal academic reward. She put herself before her studies that summer— got in tune with her innermost self, and consequently the warmth and power of her unique magic— and felt calmer and more confident in herself and her abilities than she had in ages.

And others seemed to be noticing, too.

Hermione flexed her fingers. She couldn’t help but feel Harry’s touch as if it were branded into her skin.

They’d held hands before. Usually in life-threatening situations, but still— they’d done it. So why did it feel different this time?

She stared at her hand for far too long before returning her eyes to the same page she’d been on for several minutes.

No luck.

She did her best to press all unwanted speculation to the dark recesses of her busy mind and stood abruptly. Her bones popped as she stretched. The book found a temporary home on the end table by the arm of the loveseat. Her watch revealed that there was still about an hour before the match.

“Hermione?” 

It was Harry.

“Me and Ron were going to go look at souvenirs,” he said, one foot in the tent and one outside. He ruffled the hair on the back of his head nervously. “You coming?”

“Ron and I,” she correctly delicately. He rolled his eyes, but smiled a little. “Of course. Let me get my bag.”

After she got her little beaded pouch from the bedroom she would be sharing with Ginny, they met with Ron by the fire. He was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Come on, then,” the redhead demanded impatiently. “We’ve got to get the good stuff before they move on!”

Harry laughed and they fell into their earlier formation: Hermione in the middle with Harry and Ron flanking her to the right and left respectively. She was grateful for the arrangement, but felt too embarrassed to admit it out loud.

Hermione took in the various enchanted items dancing and flying and sparkling and doing all kinds of entertaining things to draw the eyes of any kid with a galleon or two in their pocket. She was particularly drawn to a Senegalese witch selling both gold-and-green and red-and-black woven headbands as well as earrings and those little circlets for locs that were suitably decorated with small inset jewels for the occasion. Hermione ended up purchasing a green-and-gold headband that she artfully used as a scrunchie to put up half of her hair. She also bought a pair of shamrock earrings that, when prompted, sang the Irish team’s fight song, and three programs for her and the boys.

She was playing with Ron’s little Krum figurine when she felt Harry press something cold, heavy and metallic into her free hand. She looked down at what seemed like heavily modified binoculars.

“Thanks, Harry,” she said, inspecting the contraption curiously. Ron snatched his figurine back after noticing she’d surreptitiously swiped it from him. “What is it?”

“Omnioculars,” said Harry. He seemed very excited about them. “They play back what you see.”

He proceeded to show her all the different functions, slightly behind and to the side of her. She could feel his breath on the side of her neck as he explained. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was hitting on her, but Harry was hopeless at many social things— including, but limited to, speaking to more than two people at once, asking for anything, subtlety, talking to girls his age that weren’t already his friend, and lying. Oh, his lying was just awful.

Hermione didn’t exactly like to lie, but she was at least passable at it if she prepared enough. Harry was an improviser, and his improvisation often left much to be desired.

All of that to say— it was doubtful that he was intentionally trying to make a move on her. Mostly because it was Harry, for Merlin’s sake. Partly because Hermione figured she would know if he had any such inclinations.

Wouldn’t she?

“We should get back to the tent,” Ron said suddenly. “We’ll probably be heading up soon.”

Harry agreed and patted her on the shoulder before falling into step with Ron. Hermione blinked owlishly before trotting to catch up with them.

Charged by the excited hum of voices reverberating throughout the forest, Hermione practically danced as she walked, anticipation building like a geyser about to burst heavenward. She skipped to get ahead of Harry and Ron— who were surrounded by a weird energy she didn’t particularly care for— and matched pace with the twins, who were whispering amongst themselves like a couple of old ladies out for tea.

“What are you two talking about?” Hermione asked innocently.

George (she was almost sure) eyed her warily. “Nothing.”

“Absolutely zilch,” said Fred.

“Zero times seven,” said George.

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” sniffed Hermione. “I was just curious.”

“Curious, you?” Fred remarked wryly. “That’s a first, surely?”

“Don’t call me Shirley,” Hermione tutted.

Fred chuckled.

“She’s funny,” George said. “Was she always funny, Gred?”

“Y’know, I don’t remember her always being funny.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Hermione.

She laughed when they rearranged themselves to flank her and linked both of her arms with theirs. It was fast and seamless enough that Hermione wondered if twin telepathy did actually exist. Perhaps in magical twins… 

She’d have to read on it.

“Miss Granger,” said Fred, affecting a voice like some tinny, twenties announcer, “what do you think of Ireland’s odds?”

Hermione shook her head, smiling. “The future looks green.”

George cast her a sly look. “Is that a Seer talking?”

“Your lucky numbers are four, ten, thirty-six and twenty-three.”

When they gave her identical bewildered stares, she laughed and explained the simple joy of fortune cookies to them.

“I’d show you, but there aren’t any Chinese restaurants in Diagon Alley,” Hermione mused. She watched the grass give and bend under the weight of their footwear and considered her words. “I wonder why that is.”

“You’ll have to take us on a tour next time we’re in London,” said Fred, disrupting her mental tangent. “A muggle tour.”

“When’s the next time the two of you will be in muggle London?” scoffed Hermione. “Seems unlikely.”

“We have our ways, Granger,” George replied cryptically. “Just be ready.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, but right at that moment, Fred jabbed lightly between her left ribs and she let out a startled shriek of a giggle.

Mr. Weasley turned from his spot at the head of the pack and wagged his finger distractedly. “Boys, behave yourselves!”

“Of course, Dad,” they chorused like little angels.

Behind them, Ron harrumphed rather loudly. Hermione didn’t bother looking back at him. If he wanted to act like a great big baby and pout around before an event as exciting as the Cup, that was fine, but Hermione refused to let him ruin her good time.

It was one of her new rules. No one was allowed to make her feel any kind of way about anything that wasn’t blatantly her fault. And since she had no idea what Ron’s problem was, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her.

So Hermione spent the remainder of the walk to the stadium chatting and laughing with the twins, who were hilarious conversationalists— especially Fred, who, she noticed, seemed to talk more between the two. George was a bit more reserved— not by any normal person’s standards, just in comparison. He chose his words a bit more carefully than Fred, who puked them out until something funny came along and he ran with it. It was a sight to behold.

The stadium was larger than any she had ever seen.

The seats rose so high and so steeply that she felt a bit sick just looking down. Their seats in the top box were fantastic, and she made sure to thank Mr. Weasley again for thinking of getting her a ticket. He merrily waved her off, calling her family.

There was one thing that bothered her, though.

There was a house elf near them, reserving a seat for her master. It was disgusting to see, and Hermione fumed during Harry’s entire exchange with the tiny creature.

She’d read a bit about house elves before; magically chained to their owners for long-lasting generations of servitude, sometimes abused and sometimes let go without warning and given no way to further support themselves. It was veritably barbaric, and unquestionably a form of slavery. There were defenders of the archaic practice of owning house elves that claimed there was some sort of energy feedback loop that fueled the creatures’ life energy, but there was no written evidence anywhere to suggest that.

Hermione wanted to speak to the little elf, but she knew she would probably only upset her. Most elves didn’t bother to think of liberation— why would they? What would they know of their own history, what could possibly lie on the other side of their masters’ wards and walls?

“Are you alright?” 

Hermione turned to Harry, fists clenched in a silent rage. “What?”

He tilted his head to one side; the glint of the stadium lights reflected off of his glasses and hurt her eyes. “You were staring pretty hard.”

“I’m fine,” she said, and turned away.

The box filled steadily over a half hour; Mr. Weasley shook a lot of hands, Percy was beside himself trying to make an impression on every slightly important-looking witch or wizard that came through, and shattered his spectacles when Minister Fudge came in with his Bulgarian counterpart.

The Minister came over to Harry and introduced him to the other minister, who apparently didn’t speak fluent English. Hermione recognized the look of someone pretending; she hid her amusement, though, and eagerly awaited the moment when Fudge realized he’d been made to look an absolute fool.

Then, the Malfoys walked into the top box and the temperature of the enclosure dropped approximately six degrees.

Hermione pursed her lips throughout their scuffle with the Weasley patriarch and tried to understand why they were such god-awful people.

She managed not to look at either Draco or his parents as they were greeted by Fudge, but then— for some dumb, stupid reason— she slipped up and glanced over her shoulder.

She and Draco locked eyes. His grey ones widened, took in the rest of her, and his thin lips gaped open just the tiniest bit before he seemed to realize his own expression and became stony-faced like a marble statue. Hermione smirked and tossed her hair dramatically over her shoulder when she turned back around to face the front of the box; she felt the power from her newfound center radiate outward and warm her fingers and toes like a cup of warm cider, making up for the dark aura that hung around the uppity purebloods like a bad smell and made the whole box colder.

“Slimy gits,” muttered Ron when the family finally took their seats. Hermione firmly decided not to waste another moment’s thought on them.

The Bulgarian mascots were Veela. When Harry began to stand as if to jump from the top box, Hermione grabbed the back of his robes and tugged him back down into his seat. He batted her hands away distractedly, and when he looked up, the performance was over and he seemed utterly confused, like he was trying to solve a long, algebraic equation.

Hermione found it annoying, and against her better judgment, just the tiniest bit adorable.

Ireland’s mascots’ performance was more all-inclusive, if just as manipulative. Hermione looked on in bland amusement as people in the stands scrambled to stuff their pockets with leprechaun gold - Ron among them.

The game itself, Hermione would barely remember. It was fast-paced and exciting and loud and everything that she’d hoped it would be, but her interest and loyalty to Ireland’s team existed only because of those around her; she had no stake in how things would pan out. It was simply exhilarating to be there.

When Krum caught the snitch and the entire stadium erupted in a wall of deafening sound, Fred leapt from his seat on the other side of her, roared his approval, and swept her up in an embrace that pushed their faces so close together she could count the constellation of freckles on his face and feel his long, blazing hair tickling her own. On pure instinct and adrenaline, Hermione did something she’d never done before:

She kissed a boy.

She kissed Fred Weasley; her best friend’s brother.

There was a dichotomy of sensation in her thoughts immediately after their lips met; physical and emotional. Physically, she thought that Fred’s lips were soft, but firm once they caught onto what was going on. He didn’t use any tongue - he seemed curious, driven brazenly by the energy that had exploded around them. She hovered uncertainly for a moment before cupping his cheeks gently and enjoying the moment for what it was; Hermione felt that it was a very good first kiss. 

Emotionally, she felt guilty. And she thought she knew why, but she didn’t particularly feel like exploring why. Not when there was a cute boy attached to her at the mouth.

Eventually, they broke apart after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds by standard reckoning. Fred looked awestruck. She wondered what she looked like. Her lips tingled. She glanced around. Nobody seemed to have noticed, busy with celebrating as they were. Over Fred’s shoulder, though, she caught a tiny smile from the profile of George’s nearly-identical face, turned slightly away from them but nonetheless visible. Her cheeks burned, but her lips pulled upwards at the corners of their own accord.

Fred - who had put his arms around her waist sometime during their heated liplock - pulled away from her, one hand going deep in his pocket and the other flying up to tousle the back of his shoulder length hair. Hermione thought it was the only time she’d ever seen him nervous.

“Good game,” she said, smiling coquettishly.

His regular disposition - that jaunty, perpetually on posture and grin - melted back onto him like a well-fitted suit. 

“One for the books,” he said, and his eyebrows jumped playfully up and down a few times. 

She threw her head back and laughed joyfully.

One for the books, indeed.

“He was very brave, wasn’t he?” she mused on the way back to their tents. The boys couldn’t stop gibbering. “He looked an absolute mess by the end.”

“He was brilliant,” Harry breathed. “He knew they couldn’t catch up so he ended it on his own terms - that catch…”

Ron looked ready to faint. “That catch? That feint!”

“The Wronski Feint,” Harry practically drooled. “It was textbook. He made it look effortless!”

Hermione drowned out their words, but took in the light in their jubilant faces. Their vibrant energies washed over her like rays of balmy sunshine. She inhaled deeply, sure she could actually smell their euphoria, thick like a heady perfume.

The crowds were boisterous, carrying their merriment from the stadium to the campgrounds; there was drinking and hooping and hollering, laughter and banter and sleepy children being carried in the arms of their serene-faced parents. The scents of celebratory foods and snacks to soak up the booze and put even the heaviest of indulgers to bed drifted throughout the entire field.

Mr. Weasley, seeing how the post-match celebration had infected his children, allowed them to stay awake for just a bit longer for a cup of hot cocoa. Hermione accepted hers gratefully, and tried not to glance at Fred too much whenever there was a pause in the bickering or the match commentary.

If anyone noticed, they didn’t let on.

Eventually, Ginny fell asleep over her mug and nearly spilled hot cocoa all over the table, and Mr. Weasley made the executive decision to call it a night. Hermione practically dragged the younger girl over to their tent right next door, and on their way out, she caught Fred’s eye.

He was staring at her like he wanted something. He was kicked back in a chair by the fireplace, balanced on one foot only, and had his elbows perched up on the backrest - a reclined posture that made the lean muscles in his shoulders and biceps stand out even in the baggy jumper he wore. His hair was pushed back and away from his face. The light of the fire made his pale skin glow golden.

Hermione smiled at him and left the tent with Ginny clinging to her arm, utterly unaware of the way the youngest Weasley boy's eyes following her as she went.


	3. we can't end the night like this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hermione works her magic

The festivities continued as Hermione tried to sleep on the bottom bunk in she and Ginny’s tent. It was partly the noise and partially a warmth that spread from her neck to her belly to her womanhood that kept her from slumber. Hermione was no stranger to such pleasures; she’d explored quite a bit over the summer, gotten to know what she liked and what she didn’t, and had a damn good time doing so.

She wondered if Fred thought of her that way. She wondered if she thought of Fred that way. She figured she could easily allow herself to fall deeper into the genuine delight she felt in his presence - despite her passing annoyance from time to time.

Ginny tried her best to stay up after brushing her teeth and washing her face, but she succumbed to sleep about half an hour after they’d retired.

About an hour after Ginny dropped off, Hermione heard the flaps of their tent rustling.

She sat up.

She wasn’t surprised to see Fred standing at the entrance in his cloak, which gapped open in the front to reveal a pair of long pajama pants and a navy, short-sleeved tee. She forced her eyes away from the exposed vee of flesh where his neck met the collar of his shirt and climbed down the bunk bed to meet him outside.

“What are you doing?” she questioned bluntly. “It’s past midnight.”

“I came to see if you wanted to wreak some havoc on unsuspecting campers,” he replied as if it were obvious, and then reached up and bounced one of her nighttime twists. 

She scowled and smacked his hand away.

“Don’t touch my hair,” she said. “And no, I do not want to wreak havoc on unsuspecting campers. Don’t you have a brother for that?”

“He’s passed out with his arse up in the air,” said Fred. “Come on, just for a little while - you weren’t sleeping, anyway.”

“And how do you know that?”

“You popped right up, Granger.”

“Yes, to get rid of you.”

He laughed. Hermione noticed that his shoulders shook when he did so, and that his lips— the lower one fuller than the top, the latter being shaped like a thin archer’s bow— stretched over his teeth and that the sound he tried to contain so as not to wake anyone came from an open maw. Hermione loved it. The picture reaffirmed her opinion that Fred Weasley was a very handsome boy, supplemented by his cleverness; more handsome, dare she think, than even his own twin brother.

“I’ll go with you, “ she said. “But only because you went through all the trouble of walking the five feet from your tent to ours.”

“I’m touched that my sacrifice moved you,” Fred replied seriously, in complete contrast to his previous disposition.

She flicked the tip of his nose and disappeared back into the tent to slip on her trainers. When she returned, Fred linked arms with her and they were off— headed toward a gap between two larger family-sized tents to enter into the fray of smaller ones on the other side.

Before they got far, the deafening whoosh of an explosion shook the ground, and a column of fire and spell-light burst heavenward— visible from where they stood perhaps half a kilometer away. 

The noise was so loud that the scene that followed played out in almost complete silence save for the ringing in her ears; the black sky lit up from the flames, and— painted a silhouette by the background of the smoke was the struggling body of the man who’d admitted them onto the campground. His twitching form bounced like a puppet in some perverse show, dancing on invisible strings.

Almost immediately after, three more bodies joined him— and two were very small.

Hermione didn’t realize she’d been frozen in horror and fear until she felt Fred’s firm hand grip hers and practically drag her back to their tents. She touched her face as they ran, stunned to find that her cheeks were wet.

She peered up at the parts of Fred’s face she could see in the dark and from behind him— he looked to be shouting something, his neck and jaw straining and slackening over and over. They found Mr. Weasley ushering the rest of his children and Harry out of the tents.

Herds of witches and wizards stampeded by, fleeing toward the forest; children were clutched in their parents’ arms with terrified faces and flailing fists. Tents were torn and knocked over. The entire campground was chaos— an entirely different kind than it had been just hours before.

Fred led them up to George, Ron, Harry and Ginny, who stood by the tents in their pajamas awaiting direction. Mr. Weasley did not miss their sudden appearance.

“Where were you two?” he demanded, red-faced and flustered in a way Hermione had come to recognize as a very rare state for him to be in.

Hermione wanted very much to burst into tears, but she stiffened her upper lip and did something she occasionally had to do, as much of a friend of Harry Potter as she was:

“My headband broke and the vendors were still making their rounds so I asked Fred to take me to go get another one,” the lie tumbled out as easily as anything, and maybe she was a little unnerved by that. “He was the only one awake.”

Mr. Weasley didn’t seem to care one way or another, and seemed to accept her falsehood without question; he then directed them to the forest, saying something about assisting the Ministry in containing the situation.

Bill, Charlie and Percy filed out of the tent, then, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands aloft, and with their father they took off for the heat of the fray. Fred released Hermione’s hand— and until then, she hadn’t released they’d still been connected— and took Ginny’s.

“Let’s go,” he said firmly.

Harry seemed fixated on something behind them. Hermione looked. The perpetrators were visible, now— a crowd of faceless black cloaks, marching uniformly with wands drawn and pointed toward the sky.

“Harry,” Hermione urged, and grabbed him by the back of his cloak with her free hand.

He snapped out of it and started toward the forest as if yanked by some invisible cord. 

The anxiety-ridden nightmare of being separated in the fray.

Malfoy. His eyes roving up and down her form while poisonous words spilled from his serpentine tongue.

Harry’s wand.

The aggressive spellfire passing just over their heads, brushing the hairs on their heads. The shouting. The accusations.

Harry’s wand.

Morsmordre.

Winky; hysterical, traumatized. Freed— no, released. Fired.

Harry’s wand.

Morsmordre. The symbol in the sky, sneering in warning.

And then gone, as if it were never there.

And throughout it all, the sinking feeling in her gut… that nothing would ever really be the same. That something loomed on the horizon— something they would never come back from.

“We should get some rest,” said Mr. Weasley after they rehashed all that had occurred, and what it all meant; he looked haggard and shadowy-eyed. “We’ll try to catch an early portkey in the morning.”

Everyone looked into each other’s faces - frightened or anxious or angry or perturbed or disturbed - and there seemed to be a thread in their collective psyche; that going to bed would be more lying down than actual unconsciousness. No one would sleep well tonight. Hermione felt something within snap.

“No,” she said. Mr. Weasley looked at her, startled.

“What’s wrong?”

“We can’t go to bed like this,” she stated simply. “We can’t end the night like this; our energies are all off. I… just… everyone wait here.”

She felt bemused eyes on her as she marched out of the tent to retrieve the things she’d need from her bag in she and Ginny’s tent.

Being alone and separate for even those brief moments made her soul shiver, shortly bereft of the strength of a pack.

She was keenly aware of how much danger she’d been in tonight as opposed to everyone else; she’d been marked from the start of her journey into a world in which she had every right to participate. She had magic running through her veins just like Malfoy, just like the Death Eaters. Just like the Weasleys, and just like Harry. There was nothing physically different to distinguish her from them, and yet she was the dirty, tainted one. She, who arguably tried the hardest, who did her best to make her mark on a society that marked her as a second-class citizen. It was ironic that the Death Eaters, negatively-regarded as they were, were probably still seen as more magically legitimate than even the brightest of the Muggleborn.

Anxious anger made her arms and legs tremble as she carried her goods back to the boys’ tent.

Mr. Weasley, Bill and Charlie sat at the table speaking quietly amongst themselves. Percy sat with them, but he didn’t seem engaged in the conversation; his arms were crossed tightly, and his terse eyes were focused somewhere above his father’s head. Undoubtedly, his boss’ involvement in the events of the evening left him rattled and indignant. Hermione had wanted to throttle him earlier, and she usually liked Percy.

The rest of the Weasleys and Harry sat in the tiny sitting area of the tent, doing nothing. Ron was playing with his duck-footed Krum figurine.

The scene was dark and tired. Hermione stepped hard to announce her presence when she entered fully. Everyone looked up.

“Move the chairs back so everyone can sit,” she directed no one in particular.

After a moment’s silence and hesitance, Bill waved his wand and the armchairs scooted back of their own accord.

Hermione took a few deep breaths, and centered herself. She had never done a cleansing ritual with so many people before, and she wanted to do it right.

“We’re going to purge our auras of negative energy,” she announced to the room. “It doesn’t hurt, and it’ll make us all feel better. Everyone who doesn’t wish to participate doesn’t have to, but I ask that you not disturb the process.”

“I’ll do it,” Ginny declared immediately. “I’m scared shitless.”

“Ginny,” Mr. Weasley gently admonished.

“What? I am!”

“I’m game,” Fred shrugged.

George agreed, “Me, too.”

Harry and Ron nodded numbly, though the latter eyed the effects in her arms warily.

Bill seemed mightily intrigued and curious, and Charlie readily jumped in on account of the fact that he had apparently participated in a similar ritual before. Percy remained tight-lipped and gave neither his approval nor his declination. Mr. Weasley politely declined, but expressed a desire to observe.

Hermione turned to Percy expectantly, needing a definitive answer. Upon being put on the spot, the older boy shook his head once, tightly, and she nodded in acceptance before moving into the cleared space. She tried not to think of how embarrassed she’d have been if no one wanted to do it.

Careful hands placed candles, sage, salts and two tiny bowls the size of halved oranges on one of the armchairs and took her imbued chalk to draw a large circle on the wooden floor. She followed the curving line closely with her wand, but said no incantation. Once that was finished, she took the candles, set them in the middle of the circle and lit them with her wand.

“Everyone sit just inside the circle,” she said. “In age order. Bill, Ginny - you two should be sitting next to each other. Um, leave a space for me… between George and Ron.”

They followed her direction. She poured flaky sea salt in one tiny bowl. Then, she lit the end of the bundle of sage and picked up the other bowl to catch its ashes.

“Close your eyes,” she told them softly. 

She looked around to make sure everyone did, and tried not to pay attention to Mr. Weasley and Percy, who sat at the table and watched. Then, with a slow, purposeful gait, she walked around the outside of the circle and let the wisps of sage-scented smoke encircle the heads of her friends like thin ribbon halos.

“Take deep breaths.” she said. “In for three counts, holding for five, and releasing for three more.

“Visualize your emotions, the good and the bad. Give them form. Give them a name. When we name things, we take away their power.”

Harry twitched.

“There are negative feelings laying hands on your control, your cool, your center. They want to take it… they want what is rightfully yours - they want your power. Visualize yourself taking it back from them. Plucking their greedy fingers off of it.

“Your emotions do not rule you. They guide you. Emotions are like pain - they alert us to our circumstances. But the fight is over and the night is coming to a close. Now, they’re like an alarm after the fire has been extinguished - loud and distracting and unnecessary. Picture your hands reaching forward and flipping a switch to turn it off.

“We are here, together. Nothing can harm us, not tonight. When you lay your on your pillow to sleep, your dreams will be impervious to terror, to anxiety. It will be a peaceful sleep. Tomorrow morning, we’ll leave this place and tonight’s events behind.”

She set down the sage on the nearest chair, took the bowl of salt and placed it in Ginny’s hands. Ginn jumped a bit, but after only a second grasped it firmly.

“A bowl of salt is coming around. Take a little and crumble it between your fingers. When it gets to you, Bill, place it in front of you.”

She took her place between George and Ron and closed her eyes.

“We call upon the great Morgana le Fey to protect us, to guard our magic with her awesome power.”

She could hear the crackling rasp of salt being handled and falling to the floor.

“We call upon the just Maat to bring reason to this unreasonable night, and order to happenings most disorderly.”

She felt the bowl being pressed clumsily into her thigh and cupped it gently, taking a generous pinch before passing it on.

“We call upon the strength of Nike to imbue our auras with that strength. Strength to move forward, and go beyond this place without taking its energies with us.”

The sound of the salt continued for a few more moments before she heard the telltale thunking of the bowl upon the floor.

“To those energies, we say: ‘thank you, but you are no longer welcome.’ Say it, and join hands. Make it your mantra until it no longer needs to be said.”

She felt Ron’s clammy hand in her left one and George’s unsteady one press into her right. A chorus of disjointed voices chanted the small phrase, staggered in timing and varying in confidence.

“We cast you out of our hearts and out of our minds. So it has been said, and so it shall be.”

A breeze, gentle at first and then firm enough to lightly tousle her hair, swirled the room. It felt like someone incredibly powerful had entered the space; stronger than perhaps ten Albus Dumbledores. A hush fell over them all.

Hermione allowed the presence to read her good intentions, her desire for only the best for everyone in the room, even those not participating.

She felt the warmth of its approval (of their approval?) caress her cheeks and faintly kiss the middle of her forehead; she released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. 

Then, as soon as it appeared, it vanished and left only that comforting warmth in its wake.

Hermione opened her eyes.

Around the circle, she saw that the faces of her friends were significantly less troubled, but also awestruck. Charlie’s face shone in the dim light with tears. Harry visibly trembled. She relinquished her grip on Ron and George’s hands and crawled toward the candle, pleased to see it still burned; a further sign that their ritual had been blessed.

She blew it out and stood.

“You can open your eyes now,” she said, laughing a bit. Her heart felt as light as a feather. She glanced at the table.

Mr. Weasley seemed moved, his eyes suspiciously shiny. Percy had placed his head on his folded arms and fallen asleep, his face slack and peaceful.

“Where the bloody hell did you learn to do that?” Ron demanded, amazed. He looked rosy-cheeked, and seemed to struggle to contain his glee. “I feel like I could lift a building!”

“I read it in a book,” she shrugged.

“Oh, of course you did,” Ron snorted. “Who did I think I was talking to? She read it in a book, everybody!”

She punched him playfully on the arm and began to gather her effects. Bill handed her the bowl of salt, and quietly thanked her. Hermione merely smiled.

When she’d placed all of her things onto the armchair she’d been using as a table and vanished the chalk circle, a set of arms attacked her with a tight hug from one side. Then, another and another, until it was one giant embrace.

“Can’t breathe,” she wheezed.

“Let the love in!” Fred shouted.

“Reel it in, Freddie,” George snickered. “We just got the little one down.”

He jerked his head toward Percy, who Hermione assumed was still slumbering away like— well, a baby. She couldn’t tell for sure because of the wall of bodies and faces bracketing her in.

“You’re something else, Hermione,” Charlie sniffled.

“Definitely something else,” Harry agreed.

“Alright, enough of this mushy stuff,” Ginny complained, as stuck as Hermione was. “I’m tired.”

They disbanded reluctantly, though Fred wrapped his arms around Ginny and lifted her up off the ground in joyful spite. She squirmed and kicked and shrieked in laughter.

Mr. Weasley called for an end to the roughhousing and sent them all off to bed for real. Before Hermione left with Ginny in tow, though, the patriarch stopped her with a kind hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you,” he said; his every pore oozed sincerity.

She patted his hand gently. “We’re family, and families help each other feel better, don’t they?”

“Indeed they do,” he smiled. “Goodnight, dear.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Weasley.”


	4. the nature of houses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. F*** JK and her TERF ass rhetoric. That s*** had me effed up.
> 
> 2\. I’m sorry for my almost YEAR long hiatus, but I was overwhelmed by the comments on the initial three chapters. I haven’t seen that much action since like 2013 on ffnet! I didn’t think anyone would read this and I was intimidated by the overwhelmingly positive response; thank you all so much for your kind words. It’s been a rough few months, but I want to try to update more regularly from here on out.
> 
> 3\. Sorry for the hanging prepositions :(
> 
> 4\. Sorry if the structure is a bit off. I had a really hard time trying to figure out how to transition from this chap to the next :(( dw I’ll figure it out eventually lol

“Mr. Weasley?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“May I pick your brain about something?”

Arthur chuckled and pushed his glasses up his nose. “What do you want to know about, my dear?”

Hermione passed the salt to Ginny, who’d asked for it, before clasping her hands on top of the table and leaning in to convey her interest.

“The Wizengamot,” she declared. “I’ve read about it, I know what it does, but there’s something that I haven’t quite been able to understand.”

“What’s that?”

“The Supreme Mugwump and fifteen of the fifty seats are the only elected positions in the entire legislative body,” Hermione rattled off, observing the way Arthur nodded along with a small frown, probably aware of the point she was about to make. “The other thirty-five are passed down through the bloodlines of old families. Twenty-eight of those are Sacred seats, which hold more power both formally and informally in the political sphere. I’m not naïve enough to ask why, but times are changing and not everybody on the council is a horrible, bigoted troll. Why hasn’t anybody addressed it?”

Arthur steepled his fingers. “There are a few Houses that keep up firm traditions of fighting for better representation in the Wizengamot, which is why those fifteen elected positions exist. But it’s as you said— the Sacred families simply hold more weight and most of them don’t find equity to be in their best interests, for obvious reasons.”

“Plus,” Bill inserted, clearly having been paying attention to their conversation, “families that could tip the scale in the other direction are usually denied their seats on absurd grounds or cursed by their relatives in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, who claim it forthwith.”

“The Prewetts were one such family,” Percy said, stabbing at his eggs.

“The Shafiqs just got their seat back from the Lestranges when they went to Azkaban back in ‘81,” Bill added. “Their title was held hostage by a Lestrange that married in and stole it on a technicality.”

“It’s a blood game, is what it is,” Arthur remarked bitterly. “It hasn’t been anything else for decades, now.”

“Who holds the Weasley title?” Harry asked.

“I do,” Arthur answered. “I tend to vote Light or Neutral, but it isn’t a Sacred seat and I don’t do much politicking. I have neither the time nor the stomach for it.”

“Can you… start a house?” Hermione queried, lips twitching. “Just out of the blue? The Not Yet Ancient, Although Noble House of Granger?”

George snorted.

Arthur looked to the ceiling in thought. “To my understanding, yes. But being legally and socially recognized is another matter altogether.”

“How would I do that?”

Arthur squinted at her. “Do you want to do that?”

“I’m just curious,” Hermione replied, smiling blithely.

“If you start your own House, can I be part of it?” Ginny asked. “I’ll be the treasurer.”

“It’s considered disrespectful to request to join another House when you’re already a recognized member of a healthy, functioning one, Ginevra,” Percy said. “Especially if it’s not by marriage.”

Arthur made a small noise of disagreement and shrugged. “Not necessarily. You can be part of more than one House by amicable association as well as marriage, as long as it’s acknowledged as such by both entities.”

“I’ll be the treasurer,” Ginny repeated, grinning spitefully at Percy.

“There’s no such thing as being a treasurer for a House,” Percy rolled his eyes. “Those duties just fall to the Head.”

“You can be the honorary treasurer,” Hermione cheekily assured her.

Ginny pumped her fist slyly.

The most interesting thing about The ‘Gamot of Law: a Complete History of Britain’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement by Opal King was not the pun in the title, the book’s surprisingly objective point of view or even that King had a master’s degree in archival analysis from a renowned muggle university. The most interesting thing were the implications it cast on the happenings to which Hermione had bore witness since her first day in the Wizarding World.

There were definitely situations that, as a child, she shouldn’t have been anywhere near. And technically, several different lawsuits could have been filed against Hogwarts and the Ministry by not only herself, but her friends had they known their rights or any laws besides don’t do magic in front of muggles. But even that wasn’t the most interesting realization of the summer.

Saving Sirius Black from unjust persecution had been one of the most rewarding, yet traumatizing things she’d ever done. She’d done it because his innocence made sense. She’d done it because Remus Lupin, an adult that she trusted, had staked his entire career on it. Most of all, she’d done it for Harry because he was her best friend and she wanted better for him than miserable summers with people who hated him. 

But Peter Pettigrew got away and, although Sirius was freed from bondage, the law still chased him relentlessly. Something about that didn’t sit right with Hermione— had never, in fact— but in the presence of her close friends, she’d been reminded of her suspicions and subsequently had them confirmed by one of her favorite pastimes: research.

In a section of the chapter dedicated to court procedures, the law was quoted directly saying that each and every individual accused of a crime greater than a misdemeanor had the right to a trial before the Wizengamot; a similar rule to that of their muggle counterparts. The entirety of the next page detailed several cases in the antebellum period of the last two major wars— in the late forties and early fifties, and again in the late seventies through the eighties— in which criminals were convicted of war crimes without due process. Lawsuits against the Ministry were frequent during those times, filed predominantly by pureblood families with money and time to spare.

Almost glaring at her from the page was the absence of anything about Sirius Black. If he had gone to trial, it would have been one of the biggest trials of the decade. The visibility of the entire situation should have pretty much ensured everything happening above board— but Hermione was almost entirely sure that if she asked the man right that moment if he’d sat trial, she would get a resounding no.

Which was insane for several reasons— not least of which being that if anyone with even a modicum of legal experience had spared a passing analysis on the case, it would have been blown wide open. Regardless of Sirius’ misplaced self-incrimination, and doubly regardless of Peter Pettigrew’s disappearance.

“Because of the nature of Houses,” she muttered to herself. 

“What?”

She looked up from the page. She’d been staring at it so hard for so long that she was certain everybody looking to speak with her had probably been turned away by the sheer severity of her momentarily turbulent aura. 

Everybody except Fred, of course. He seemed to thrive on chaos.

“Nothing,” she replied, standing from the armchair and stretching. “Just a thought. It’s nothing.”

Fred perched his hands on his back like a much older wizard and squinted at her. “How can a person be so good and yet so bad at lying at the same time?”

“I resent that,” she told him, and moved to walk past him with the book tucked under her arm.

He stuck out an arm to block her path. She ducked and went under it and he made a small noise of protest.

“Fine, I take it back,” she heard him say, only a couple of steps behind her. “You’re the greatest liar to ever lie.”

“I wasn’t trying to lie,” she rolled her eyes. “Maybe I’m plotting. You don’t know.”

“You, plotting? How? Why?”

“So many questions, Frederick,” she sighed loftily, reaching the stairs and hopping up a few steps before turning to face him, standing half a head taller. “If I gave you the answers, I’d have to kill you.”

“If you’re trying to un-intrigue me, you’re apparating in the wrong direction.”

“Where’s your better half?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

He shrugged. She gave him a look and he sighed.

“I don’t give direct answers to anyone about anything,” he said. “If I did that now, it’d be hideously out of character.”

“So, be clever,” she challenged.

The corners of his lips twitched before curling into a slow grin, dripping with something adjacent to connivance. Without another word, he gestured up the stairs with flourish.

She merely raised her eyebrows at him, waiting; when he merely stood there staring at her with that annoying look on his face, she gave up and turned back around to continue on her way. Mercifully, he did not follow. She was all out of witty one-liners.

“I’m starting to think… y’know, maybe… maybe they aren’t just nightmares.”

They sat in Ron’s bedroom. Harry stared at his hands as he recalled what he could remember; behind the sheen of his lenses, his eyes were dull and haunted. Afraid, and afraid to show it.

Hermione got up from the floor, dusting off the back of her low-rise jeans, and sat on the bed. Ron watched solemnly as she reached for him; Harry allowed her to take both of his hands, and his troubled face melted just a tad.

“I know you,” she said. “And I know you’re not going to tell anybody, are you?”

“I’m telling you two,” he rebutted. “...I wrote Sirius.”

Hermione lathed her piercing gaze over the profile of his face; the point of his thin nose, the imperceptible, one-off tremble of his chin.

Her immediate instinct was to get him to tell an adult in a position to provide an actual solution to the problem, but she’d been working on being more sensitive around people when they were in distress. His clear anxiety about the entire thing made her bite her tongue. She couldn’t force him to seek help; she knew he hadn’t grown up in spaces that allowed him to see that as a viable option whenever he felt threatened. Her heart hurt.

There were deep scars in him, deeper even than the mark on his head. Casting a spell for peace after a troubling evening was hefty, especially for so many people— it had taken a lot out of her, even with all the good it had done— but even trickier still was soothing the aches that ran deep, the ones that had years to run nuanced ruts in the soil of the soul.

She tried to recall all that she’d learned about dreams during her summer of discovery. It was a difficult subject to get into, for her; it all felt a bit hokey, a bit too wispy to grasp for her tastes, but there were some things that made sense and stuck. And a part of her knew that what Harry had experienced wasn’t like a regular dream, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was.

“I’m here,” she told him softly, and glanced at Ron, who was focused on their friend as intently as she. “We’re here. But we’re in the same boat as you, Harry. We don’t know anything about this. Living with it on your back will break you if you don’t find a way to treat it.”

“What’s there to treat?” he muttered, still staring at their joined hands. “It’s in my head. I can’t exactly stick a plaster on it.”

Hermione shared a look with Ron. For once, it felt like they were on the same page.

“Are you a wizard or not?” the ginger asked, lips twitching.

Harry wiped a hand across his face and came up with a smile that curled onto his face reluctantly, like it was being pulled by a fishing wire. His head lolled in Hermione’s direction.

“Have you read anything in a book somewhere that can help me?”

“Maybe. I think I know a way that you might be able to help yourself.”

“What are they doing out there?” Molly murmured, peering out of the netted window of the back door. 

Bill pushed off of the counter with his hip and came over, freshly baked biscuit in hand, to observe the three teenagers sitting on folded legs out in the garden.

They were in a sort of triangle, facing one another. Eyes closed. Hands in their laps. Ron fidgeted some, and Hermione occasionally spoke and reached over to touch the back of Harry’s hand, but for the most part, it was a very still process. Bill wondered if they were doing another cleansing spell, or if this was something different.

He glanced at his mother. At any rate, he figured they had about ten minutes before Molly Weasley hustled over to see what all the fuss was about. She was clutching the side of the neck strap on her apron, watching the kids like a concerned hawk.

Fortunately, they moved. Hermione moved to sit closer to Ron and directly in front of Harry, who opened his eyes behind his round glasses. They seemed to just sit and stare at each other for a few moments before Harry snorted and threw a hand up to cover his face. Hermione dissolved into giggles, as well, and folded forward to clutch her stomach from mirth. Ron seemed mildly entertained, but confused— Bill did not find this surprising, as not a word had been said between them.

Molly loosened up a bit when she saw them all laughing and went back to preparing lunch. Bill watched his brother and his friends do… whatever the hell they were doing… for a bit longer before turning on his heel and walking away to mind his own business.

As he dug his toes in the sand and tried to sightlessly mouth his way to the twisty straw sliding around the rim of his piña colada, Sirius Black read the tight, neat script of his godson’s best friend on the rather long scroll that’d been given to him that morning. The girl was… long-winded, to say the least.

She was also rather resourceful, going through Dumbledore to ensure that a contact got to him faster than any owl would have managed. It was no small feat to get Albus Dumbledore to simply go along with anything in which he had absolutely no hand whatsoever, but Sirius figured she’d probably pulled the Harry Needed This card. 

Plus, even in the event that the headmaster had opened it out of curiosity’s sake, it was blank. Unless unlocked with a very specific phrase.

He finally found the straw and sucked absently as his eyes traversed the page. The rhythmic suction of his puckered lips got looser and less effective as the meat of the letter began to unfold.

He read it again, and then again. And then over it once more.

“Clever girl,” he muttered, grinning.

If his memory hadn’t been so shoddy since prison, he probably would’ve thought of it all himself. Getting his name cleared hadn’t been as high up on the priority list the past few months as surviving had been— or just trying to stay ahead of the dark urge to let his pain consume him. In his lowest moments, a voice in his head whispered to him that now that Harry knew the truth, the boy didn’t need him complicating his life anymore. He was a good kid who didn’t need Sirius, a washed-up failure, mucking things up for him and throwing things out of alignment.

But Harry still needed him. If there was one thing made crystal clear in the letter, it was that Harry wasn’t alright— that he needed saving. And if Sirius did nothing else in his entire life, he had to be there for his brother’s son. 

He could rest peacefully in the ground, safe from his demons, when Harry was happy, well-adjusted, and healthily on his own.

“I love this color on you,” Hermione murmured, leaning in close.

Ginny sat perfectly still. She’d already expressed her fear that if she moved, the little death stick would jab her in the eye.

“Are you almost done?”

“Uh-huh,” Hermione breathed, tongue between her teeth. “And… that’s it. You can look.”

Ginny spun around to confront her reflection in the vanity mirror. Hermione smiled when the younger girl gasped, blue eyes popping wide open in surprise.

“It’s so pretty!” Ginny remarked in disbelief. “And why do I suddenly have eyelashes? What did you do?”

Hermione shook her head in exasperation. “I walked you through the whole thing.”

“It’s just like in the glossy books,” Ginny mouthed breathlessly.

The glossy books were what she’d taken to calling Hermione’s muggle magazines. Wizarding publications like Witch Weekly tended to be printed on thin parchment just like the newspapers, so the shiny finish of Company was an astonishing novelty to Ginny.

A knock at the door interrupted them both admiring Hermione’s purple-shadowed and lined masterpiece. Ginny popped up to answer it. Hermione took a seat at the vanity and began rifling through her makeup bag.

“What d’you want, dickhead?” she heard Ginny greet affectionately.

“What have you got on your face?” Fred’s voice replied. Hermione tilted her head.

Ginny shrugged. “Stuff. I like it. What do you want?”

“Is Hermione in there with you?”

Hermione smiled and continued shifting through the bag, content to listen without being seen. Ginny didn’t give away a thing, cocking her hip and subtly pulling on the doorknob to obscure the room more effectively.

“Now, why would you want to know a thing like that?” she asked sweetly. “Do you need to talk to her about something?”

Hermione could practically hear his quirked eyebrow. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

“What is it? Maybe I could take a message.”

“I’m not sure that’ll do.”

Ginny tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Where’s Georgie?”

“I’ll let you borrow my broom when we get to school,” he said. 

“Done deal,” Ginny agreed readily, throwing the door wide open. “Hermione, your lover is here.”

“Of all the words you could have possibly used to describe your own brother,” Hermione said, ignoring the loud rushing in her ears at the sudden sight of Fred, who leaned against the door jamb to grin at her. “We’re not lovers.”

“Sure,” said Ginny. “Anyway, this is the first and last time I want anything to do with any of this, so. Go forth and be merry, I suppose.”

She jumped onto her bed with an enthusiastic bounce and snapped open one of Hermione’s magazines with eager hands, looking for all the world like a put-upon teen in a John Hughes film. Hermione stood from the vanity and followed Fred out of the room, closing the door behind her. 

They didn’t go very far; just out onto the landing, where Fred leaned against the banister of the stairs with an uncharacteristically contemplative look on his face.

“What do you want?” Hermione asked, not unkindly. 

She was trying her best not to appear nervous, but it was very difficult. They hadn’t been totally alone together since getting back from the campsite, but in that time, things had been decidedly flirtatious. In fact, having had time to think about it, she wondered if there hadn’t been other instances from earlier in the year when Fred flirted with her and she simply hadn’t noticed. Maybe her impulsively kissing him after the game wasn’t the key in the ignition.

“I found something I thought you might like,” said Fred, reaching into his trouser pocket to retrieve a wooden box approximately the size of a clementine. “Open it.”

“This better not be a ring.” That almost sounded like something he’d do as a joke.

“It wasn’t that good a kiss.”

She smacked him in the arm before taking the box, but he merely laughed.

Her fingers faltered when she began undoing the clasp on the tiny thing. “Nothing’s going to jump out at me, is it?”

“...that’s for you to find out.”

“Fred.”

“What kind of mischief-maker would I be if I told you when you were about to be pranked?”

“A considerate one,” Hermione insisted, and warily opened the box.

Nothing jumped out at her, thankfully. Inside were a collection of little pebbles of varying color and visual texture. At first, Hermione didn’t know what she was looking at, and then it dawned on her.

“These are arithmancy anchors,” she remarked slowly. “How… why do you have these? And why so many?”

“For spellmaking,” Fred replied simply. “And sorting out potion recipes without using up so many ingredients.”

Hermione stared at him. “And you’re… giving them to me?”

“Sure. We’ve got plenty, they’re not terribly difficult to come by. Plus, you know,” he began, “I overheard you telling Ginny how much you liked the class and how you wanted to do some of your own research— ”

Hermione surged forward and wrapped her arms around his middle. He froze for a moment before she felt him place his hands on her back and his chin on top of her head.

It was very nice of him, and such an unnecessary gesture touched her warmly. Even if what they’d briefly shared amounted to nothing, she had a newfound appreciation for Fred’s apparent ability to notice things said in mere passing— or his keen eavesdropping capabilities undoubtedly honed from years of being up to no good. 

“Thank you,” she murmured against his chest.

“You’re welcome.”

She pulled away. “Really, all this for a kiss? I never took you for a sap.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Never tell a soul.”

In the wake of the exchange, the air between them felt as if it had been plucked like the string of a guitar. He seemed nervous, unlike before.

“All jokes aside,” he said quietly, “not something I say lightly, mind— I didn’t give you those so you’d kiss me.”

Hermione smiled. “I know.”

She stood on her tiptoes and leaned her head back anyway, trusting him to get the hint. He did, closing the distance between their noticeably disparate heights and pressing his lips clumsily to hers. It was nothing like the kiss at the Cup; whereas that one was rushed— accidental tongue and a brief clack of their teeth banging together— this one was tentative, even a little shy. Like the first toe one dipped inside of a pool before wading in slowly to acclimate to the temperature.

She felt her face prickle, and noted the pinkness of Fred’s cheeks as they pulled away to stare dazedly at one another. She felt so… soft. There was no other way to describe it; she felt pliable and warm and comfortable. 

They were also physically close together, closer than she’d ever been to any boy ever— she could feel his chest expanding in front of her, could count his eyelashes, his freckles. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Was he counting her eyelashes, too?

For a moment, they just stood there, staring.  
And then Fred rubbed his lips together and a curious expression furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes.

“What do you have on your mouth?” Fred asked, rubbing a thumb across his lower lip and inspecting it curiously.

Hermione looked at the shiny thumb. “Lip gloss.”

She watched, mildly disturbed, as he proceeded to take a generous lick of the substance off of his extended digit. His pink tongue darted out to sample whatever was left on his lips, as well.

“Interesting,” he murmured. “Very interesting.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see any of that,” Hermione primly told him.

“Do you have more?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard her.

Hermione pursed her lips. “Not for experiments, I don’t.”

“I’ll just have to take some more myself, then,” he shrugged.

When she strolled back into Ginny’s room am immeasurable amount of time later, Ginny exclaimed in horror over the expression on her face, and demanded not to be told a thing about what had just transpired. It wasn’t a difficult promise to keep; Hermione enjoyed knowing that it was a moment between her and Fred and no one else— that softness, that closeness… it needed to be protected.

At least for now.

The remaining fortnight of summer holiday passed in a (mostly) pleasant daze.

Every morning as the sun rose, she meditated and readied herself for the day. 

After she’d expressed her interest in the Wizengamot, Mr. Weasley seemed to make it a point to inform Hermione cursorily of its goings-on over meals. Or sometimes, if she happened to be going over her textbooks in the kitchen when he came home from work, he would spill all right then and there. It had become routine, and slowly, Hermione found herself more than just passively invested in the legislative body that governed the British wizarding masses.

When she wasn’t doing (admittedly unnecessary) work for school, reading her old childhood favorites or talking about politics with Arthur, she was either with Fred or hanging out with Ginny, Harry and Ron. 

As far as her and Fred went, nobody seemed to know anything except for George and Ginny, and that was how Hermione preferred it— at least until they weren’t in such close quarters with anyone who could make life a living hell if any feelings were hurt.

No names necessary.

She knew Fred didn’t mind their discretion. He and George were worryingly good at keeping secrets— and he liked to sneak around. That was half the fun for him, which Hermione supposed she understood. Kisses simply tasted better when no one knew about them.

Though she enjoyed being at the Burrow, she was anxious to return to Hogwarts. She loved school, and she wanted to get back into the swing of things. There was also the intriguing mystery event that all of the adults kept talking about in conspiring tones; Hermione had never been one to hide her curiosity about anything, and this thing was no exception. This thing that required them to have a set of dress robes.

“They’re going to dress us up in our finery and make us all fight each other,” Fred said at one point, face straight. “What else could it be?”

Hermione didn’t know. She was a little peeved at being left in the dark— she couldn’t factor it into her planner if she didn’t know what it was— but she tried to let it go.

“And you have all of your books? You didn’t leave any on your desk or on your shelf?”

“If I did, Mum will just owl them to me.”

Hermione rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “She shouldn’t have to. That’s a whole trip’s worth of packaging and Errol’s energy that could be saved if you just go double check.”

Ron pulled a face at her. “Why are you so bothered? It’s not that big of a deal.”

Harry watched his friend’s face shutter closed.

“Fine,” she said. “Don’t check, then.”

Ron’s face began to bloom with redness. “Oh, great. Now you’re cross with me.”

“No, I don’t care what you do,” Hermione rebutted coolly. “I’m washing my hands of this conversation.”

And with that, she turned and went over to speak to Bill, who let her seamlessly into his and Charlie’s conversation without so much as a blink. Harry pretended to be preoccupied with stroking Hedwig’s snowy head through her cage when Ron stormed past him and up the stairs— probably to go give his desk and bookshelf another look. When he was out of sight, he sensed another presence behind and to the right of him.

“Dad called tax-lees,” Ginny remarked matter-of-factly as she shrugged on a raincoat. “Something about… not being able to spare any Ministry cars.”

“Taxis,” Harry corrected gently.

“What did I say?”

“You said… well, never mind.” He gave her coat a once over. “Nice polka-dots.”

She tucked a lock of fiery hair behind her ear and smiled. “Why, thank you.”

Thinking about who’d called the taxis reminded him that Mr. Weasley wouldn’t be accompanying them that year to King’s Cross. Apparently, a retired Auror— a Dark wizard catcher, or so he’d been told— by the name Moody had stirred up a bit of a disturbance and the Weasley patriarch had been called in to sort things out.

Thinking about Dark wizard catchers made him think of Dark magic— and further, of the wall he’d been unconsciously building in his mind whenever he had a spare moment. Hermione had firmly insisted that Occlumency wasn’t a Dark art, but a defense against it— but that only made him think of her rudimentary Legilimency performance just a few days prior, which by her logic must be considered Dark.

What else could she do, now, that would be considered Dark in the eyes of the law?

“They’re here!” Mrs. Weasley declared, looking mildly harassed by the hasty, last minute preparations that usually precluded their journey to King’s Cross. “Where’s Ronald?”

“Here,” Ron replied grumpily, coming down the stairs with a book tucked tightly under the arm closest to the wall.

Harry shoved his thoughts into a closet at the back of his mind and locked the door. He didn’t want to think about anything but their return to the greatest place he’d ever known.

They all shuffled out into the muddy yard to hand their things over to the muggle drivers, who struggled to wrangle trunks and squawking animals into their vehicles. At one point, Fred’s trunk came unexpectedly undone and his stash of Filibuster’s Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks went off, startling Crookshanks— who clawed his way up one of the drivers’ pant leg. Hermione managed to pry her cat off of the poor man, but Crooks was clearly frazzled by the entire ordeal. Harry didn’t fully comprehend how Fred didn’t burst into flames from the downright volcanic glare Hermione pinned on him.

The ride was uncomfortable. He, Hermione and Ron were in one by themselves. Crookshanks swiped his paws, blades out, at anyone who made a sudden move. The corners of their trunks dug into their thighs and arms from how tightly they were packed into the back of the car. Harry had never been so relieved to step out into the pouring rain as he was when they arrived at the station.

Like every other time he’d stepped into King’s Cross after the first, he began to feel the mounting anticipation of going through the barrier. It was sort of like a starting point for the rest of the academic year— once he slipped into Nine and Three-Quarters, he would exist on borrowed time until he had to return to the muggle world: to the Dursleys, to not eating, to waiting until it was time to resume his real life once more.

He clutched the handle of his trunk and Hedwig’s cage in tight fists, aching to jump into the fray already. The castle would wash away the beginning of his summer like magic.

“...not like I planned for it to pop open like that,” he heard one of the twins remark as their marching group approached the barrier. “I was going to use them at some point this year.”

“You traumatized my cat.”

“He’s easily startled— ”

“ —I’ll give you easily startled— !”

When he turned to look, Hermione was wagging her finger in the face of who Harry assumed was Fred. He seemed delightfully unbothered; enthused, even, by her anger at him.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs. Weasley got his attention. “You, Hermione and Ron will go first. You’ve got the… busiest luggage.”

Indeed, Crookshanks, Hedwig and Pigwidgeon were the most conspicuous pieces of their ensemble. It made sense to tuck them out of sight as soon as possible.

There was something comforting about slipping into the snug fit of magical life all over again— about pretending, about being in on a secret. He made as if to lean against the barrier casually, miming with his hands and mouth like a puppet to create the facade of intent conversation with Hermione, who tossed her big hair over her shoulder and laughed at a joke he hadn’t told. Ron bobbed his head along, another cast member in their pantomime, and just as soon as they’d begun— the performance was over. There was no encore; only the welcome sight of a grand train, billowing steam from its scarlet smokestack.

“That never gets old,” Hermione sighed.

“Never,” Harry agreed.

The rest of the clan piled onto the platform, materializing in pairs. The goodbye was bittersweet; it’d been an exciting last few days of summer.


End file.
